Favorite games in order:
Tribes 2
Diablo 2 (and 1)
Battlefield 1942
Starcraft 1
Unreal Tournament (first one)
TES Morrowind (better than oblivion in many ways except the graphics, skyrim might be a wash just because its so gorgeous)
Tex Murphy series

All of these had huge communities and lots of enjoyable side activities, not just shoot em all up etc.

Good example: BF42 vs BF4
Battlefield 1942 was fun to troll as well, you could drive the aircraft carrier off the map and kill the whole team etc. I used to enjoy flying my plane upside down through the bridges in market garden (old 90's thrustmaster joystick ftw).
Now Battlefield is more "realistic" and so its actually less fun. It was fun to fly a bomber with 4 engineers with wrenches riding the wings repairing it.

I have been thinking the same as the Op and Also people have questioned why some of use attach to alpha games these days and its really because I have not see a big name publisher/designer put out a game that is halfway decent. Games like Dayz/Rust/7 Days to die/ terraria are games that are fun but are still growing with the promise of added content without a "Seasons pass / DLC / Insert Pay for extra stuff here" Being able to voice what you want in production while testing the game is how I see the gaming industry go in the coming years. Take Star Citizen for example, it is still in alpha and is growing and growing in support with tons of feed back from the community.

Squirrels too... always amazed me how crude conkers was since diddy kong racing was so childish but I enjoyed both of those Rare brand n64 games. Conker's had the great and mighty poo, so I think that beats out DKR.

Honestly, the thing I miss the most is player created content, like custom maps and missions for games. I got my start in online gaming playing MechWarrior 3 and 4. There were literally hundreds of maps made by players of the game. Now game developers have pretty much made that impossible, so that the only new maps a player can get in games today have to be bought and paid for. Gone are the days of buying a game for $50-60 and it being maintained by the community playing it.

I am so sick of regular FPS games. The thought of even playing one makes me sick. Literally. They are all the same and it's so boring and predictable. How can anyone still get anything out of something so repetitive?

I am so sick of regular FPS games. The thought of even playing one makes me sick. Literally. They are all the same and it's so boring and predictable. How can anyone still get anything out of something so repetitive?

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its all about content. Some games get boring quick and I may get flogged for this but BF3/BF4 is one of them. The more stuff you can do in a game the more it snags my attention but every game gets boring if you play it enough.

I can't understand how someone can quote UnrealTournament (instead of Original Unreal????) as a great game in a thread like this. Together with Quake Arena it was the end of good games with a SP story and were just a game engine and some stupid MP levels.

All major titles just turned into cash cows, even some crappy DLC asks for money today. Games that can be completed in 2-3 hours now cost 60$, 50 GB in size where 99% of that is some stupid movies with QTEs and 1% is actual unpolished gameplay full of bugs.

I remember back in the day a team of 25 people or even less could create iconic games like Rule of Rose or Haunting Ground. Now they have gazillion people that produce some mediocre bizarre shit.

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The need for more devs is not surprising given how fancy the games are. Movies and quick time events is nothing new (neither are bugs), and I have no problem with that actually. The problem I have is that they are not good enough. Instead of making something new they make it Interactive Hollywood.

I can't understand how someone can quote UnrealTournament (instead of Original Unreal????) as a great game in a thread like this. Together with Quake Arena it was the end of good games with a SP story and were just a game engine and some stupid MP levels.

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... like how Everquest of Ultima Online was the death of more traditional RPG's? Deus Ex came out after UT, as did Thief 2, Jedi Outcast/Academy and a host of great games.

its all about content. Some games get boring quick and I may get flogged for this but BF3/BF4 is one of them. The more stuff you can do in a game the more it snags my attention but every game gets boring if you play it enough.

Yes there is, it's all about making money now and making the game die soon after so they can release another the year after.. For example Ghost Recon and RvS they don't want to make games like that any more as games like those last years.

How ever Far Cry 2\3 is getting to that point but always been nerfed by options that are not available in games like Ghost Recon.

This is why for a main game i am still buying games like OFP(the original) Arma as it's one of those games that's kept what it started closer to what it started with.

Yes there is, it's all about making money now and making the game die soon after so they can release another the year after.. For example Ghost Recon and RvS they don't want to make games like that any more as games like those last years.

How ever Far Cry 2\3 is getting to that point but always been nerfed by options that are not available in games like Ghost Recon.

This is why for a main game i am still buying games like OFP(the original) Arma as it's one of those games that's kept what it started closer to what it started with.

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At this point people would bitch if there wasn't a new CoD every year, or a new expansion to insert-your-MMO-of-choice. We have the world in our hands and attention spands of hyperactive five year olds.

There are actually a lot of truly challenging/fun games out there which are made independently. Games like Limbo, Fez, and Trine are all challenging and yet remain fun and compelling. Video games are an art form and just like all art forms, some game have a deeper more meaningful experience because the artist chose to put part of his soul into creating it. I don't think the lackeys creating CoD put any of their soul into those games because the company has probably long since sucked it dry. Also, the older you get the more refined your tastes become. It only gets worse!

I think that everyone is missing the point here, and it's a relatively simple one. Games have hit their original target market, and moved on to more lucrative fields. Allow me to explain.

In the days of past (specifically after the introduction of CD media circa the PS1) you knew that a console or PC had an installed user base. This base was made up of people who were willing to pay for hardware that only ran games, and might cost as much half a month's salary for the youth. These people wanted a challenge, were willing to purchase a game new, and the gaming market was new. Gaming stole readily from table tops, literature, and the cinema to introduce entirely new concepts. You could do this because people were hungry for new experiences, and the barrier to entry was miniscule. Anybody that new some coding could create text adventures, and the ones who had talent could create classic games that were entirely new experiences.

Gaming had failures, but the barrier to entry was so low that a failure could be balanced out by a success easily. This sort of low risk-low reward system meant that the growth factor wasn't huge, but it was constant. This doesn't exactly whip investors into a furor, so along came the next generation. The introduction of the PS2 and Gamecube (sorry, the Dreamcast was amazing, but died an early death) meant that disc media was here to stay, and developers had a bunch of extra hardware features to play with. This signaled a significant increase in the amount of resources to develop a new studio, but once a studio had developed the framework of their games they could dramatically decrease cost for future products. This signaled the rise of many developers, and a huge influx of games. Because studios weren't investing fortunes yet, they could be experimental. If you look at the PS2's catalog you'll find at least one of every single game type you could think of. The Xbox arrived late on the scene, but it was a PC at its core, and forever ensured the dreaded "bro" inclusion in gaming.

The Wii was a unique duck, but the Xbox 360 and PS3 brought huge leaps in hardware capability. The problem of gaming stagnation started to arise in this generation. The Cell processor was a black box for too many developers. With a much higher required investment, the experimental studios began to die. Giant conglomerates started buying up independent studios, and forced them to produce reliable titles which cashed in on trends. The exception to this was the Wii, but only because Nintendo seemed to be the only one supporting it. It isn't hard to say most games for the Wii were unique, but the library was nearly barren compared to either of the two competitors. The Wii did one thing though, it gave us the Kinect and Move.....I would personally prefer to not have been given that gift (I think the German interpretation of the English word gift is appropriate here).

Now, we are entering the "new generation" as a whole (again, Nintendo bucked our artificial order last year with the WiiU). The large barrier to entry introduced in the last generation is getting larger. Large agglomerations of studios are experiencing burn-out from consumers, because the "safe" gaming titles that supported the previous generation have finally over-saturated the market. Big name games are therefore the only "safe" bets, because the consumer has yet to burn out of the nostalgia of franchises. I say this, but as we speak the studios are doing exactly that. Artificial "piracy protection" is killing games (I'm looking at you Maxis), yearly releases are finally getting the anger they deserve, and even the huge studios are going under (RIP THQ). It is from this process that we've developed a lack of innovation. No one thing is causing games to be less interesting these days, it was a thousand paper cuts.

Now, having said all this there is hope. Anybody who played Bioshock (1 and Infinite, but 2 was meh), Super Meat Boy, and Psychonauts can see there is something to be had here. People are willing to forego the bleeding edge of visuals, instead favoring tight and awesome gameplay. The AAA world has a few gems out there, but most can be mined from non-traditional gaming sources. Terraria has received more FREE content updates than any game I've ever owned. Minecraft might be playable on a ti-83 calculator, but it's enormous amounts of fun. Yes, Nintendo is maintaining high quality releases, but so too are the independent gamers. We've pushed past the AAA barrier, and wound back up in 16 bit land with another age of exploration. I'd consider that a blessing, while watching the stereotype "bro" douches and racist 10 year olds on COD. The thing I love has reached so many more people, yet my niche still exists. I don't like having to look harder to find it, but it is still alive and thriving.

TL ; DR:
Perhaps you should have said the AAA market is missing something. If you can honestly not find a game that you love then you're not looking hard enough. AAA games aren't the end-all be-all any more. I would contend that this is better for the gaming medium than a thousand AAA games.

For just one second, consider these titles. All have the spark that most AAA titles lack, if only 1/1000th the budget:
Kerball Space Program
Terraria
Mine Craft
Pain Killer
Hard Reboot
Space Base DS9
Super Meat Boy
Amnesia
FTL: Faster than Light
Mark of the Ninja

Movies and quick time events is nothing new (neither are bugs), and I have no problem with that actually.

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I have problem with that. I don't need to watch some unskippable 1 hour long movie with excessive button mashing. If you want some interactive movie it's your choice but it doesn't mean that everyone needs it. I just want gameplay.

I have problem with that. I don't need to watch some unskippable 1 hour long movie with excessive button mashing. If you want some interactive movie it's your choice but it doesn't mean that everyone needs it. I just want gameplay.

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What, Asura's Wrath not up to your taste?

Sorry, but I had to. The gamplay is 100% simple button mashing. The challenge isn't in execution, it's in precision.

Part of the problem is that graphics has advanced so much more compared to storytelling and gameplay, not only technically but in ease of production. Now, when you take that to global perspective, 90% of games has acceptable graphics but only 20% with acceptable gameplay and 1% with acceptable stories.